Spice Girls Together Again
Spice Girls announce reunion tour
The Spice Girls have confirmed they will reform for a world tour to take place in December and January.The full line-up has not performed on stage since Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell quit in May 1998.
The 11 dates announced include a London show on 15 December, eight days after the tour begins in Los Angeles.
“I think for us it was about celebrating the past, enjoying each other and it’s about our fans. It was the right time,” said Halliwell.
The only British date is in London, with the venue not yet confirmed. The other European dates are in Cologne and Madrid.
Fears and doubts
Earlier this month Mel Chisholm, also known as Sporty Spice, told the BBC she had resisted reforming the group in the past because “it was amazing, it was magical. We could never recreate it”.
Asked why she had gone back on her word she said: “A girl is allowed to change her mind and also this is something that we have only seriously started this year really.
“I think really all of us have had our fears and doubts but we feel that the time is right.”
Good-natured
All five women laughed and joked constantly with photographers and reporters, even good-naturedly booing one journalist.
There had been rumours they would perform at the Concert for Diana memorial show in London on Sunday, but with Emma Bunton currently pregnant they decided not to appear.
“We would have loved to have been there this weekend but the timing has been impossible for us,” said Chisholm.
As the conference drew to a close, all five women left the stage holding hands as Brown shouted, “You have been spiced!”
Global success
The tour is being put together by Simon Fuller, whose 19 company masterminded the group’s global success more than a decade ago.
Under his guidance, the five-piece notched up a string of hits - including Wannabe and 2 Become 1 - while also capitalising on their fame with a stream of sponsorship deals.
Emma Bunton, Mel Brown, Mel Chisholm, Victoria Adams and Geri Halliwell quickly became household names - although they were better known as Baby, Scary, Sporty, Posh and Ginger.
They sold more than 55 million records around the world, and even starred in a film, Spice World.
Halliwell quit in 1998 citing “differences”, leaving them to complete a sold-out world tour as a foursome.
Since 2001 each member has since pursued solo careers with varying degrees of success, while Posh Spice has become better known as fashion icon Victoria Beckham.
The Spice Girls are a BRIT Award-winning English all-female pop group, which formed in London in 1994. The group signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single, “Wannabe”, in 1996. The song went to spend seven weeks at the top of the UK singles chart and helped establish the group as an “international phenomenon” who went on to release three studio albums and ten singles, selling in excess of 53 million records world wide.
The group embraced merchandise and became a regular feature of the British press. Each member of the group were given aliases by Top of the Pops Magazine in 1996 which were adopted by the group and media alike. According to biographer David Sinclair, “Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh and Sporty were the most widely recognised group of individuals since John, Paul, George and Ringo”, stating that the group were “a social phenomenon that changed the course of popular music and popular culture”.
Career records and achievements
- Total record sales in the region of 55 million. As of February 2000, the Spice
- Girls had certified sales of 35.1 million albums and 18.2 million singles: Note however, this does not include sales for their third studio album.
- Combined sales of the Spice Girls with their individual solo careers result in nearly 100 million records sold, a tally of 40 UK hit singles and 17 UK number ones.
- Certified sales of 13 million albums in Europe, 11 million in the US, and 2.2 million in Canada.
- Total of nine number one singles in the UK - tied with ABBA behind Take That (ten), The Shadows (twelve), Madonna (twelve), Westlife (fourteen), Cliff Richard (fourteen), The Beatles (seventeen) and Elvis Presley (twenty-one).
- Three consecutive Christmas Number One singles in the UK for: (”2 Become 1,” 1996; “Too Much,” 1997; “Goodbye,” 1998)
“Wannabe” is the biggest selling single by an all female group. - First (and only) female act to have their first six singles (”Wannabe”, “Say You’ll Be There”, “2 Become 1″, “Who Do You Think You Are”, “Spice Up Your Life” and “Too Much”) make number one on the UK charts. (Their run was broken by “Stop”, which peaked at number two in March 1998.)
- The Spice Girls achieved the highest ever annual earnings by an all female group in 1998 with an income of $49 million.
“Spice” is the 13th biggest-selling album of all time in the UK with over 3 million copies sold. It topped the charts for 15 weeks (non-consecutive), the most by a female group in the UK - Highest international debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at number five with “Say You’ll Be There”. (This record still holds to date.)
- “Spiceworld” shipped 7 million copies in just two weeks, including 1.4million in Britain alone - the largest-ever shipment of an album over 14 days.
- Spiceworld: The Movie broke the record for the highest-ever weekend debut for Super Bowl Weekend (January 25, 1998) in the US, with box office sales of $10,527,222. This record has since been beaten by The Butterfly Effect in 2004.
- Spiceworld: The Movie topped the UK video charts on its first week of release, selling over 55,000 copies on its first day in the shops.
- Received a plethora of awards including four BRIT Awards, three American Music Awards, three MTV Europe Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award and three World Music Awards.
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